


Riches and Wonders

by theladysarmor



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: (as close as you can get for these two), Happily Ever After, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladysarmor/pseuds/theladysarmor
Summary: The underworld is dull.Heroes are promised riches and wonders beyond their wildest dreams. It is why we try so hard. It is why I sailed across the sea, knowing that Hades was waiting for me on the other side. Chasing glory. Chasing an afterlife of pleasures and peace and renown.I do not feel like a hero, so it is understandable that the grass wilts beneath my feet where I walk and figs turn to ash in my mouth.It is lonely. Quiet.





	Riches and Wonders

**Author's Note:**

> hey! wow, gosh, i haven't written a fic in 100 years, but i just finished SoA and this was the only way to soothe my aching heart. i hope you enjoy!

We are young again.

I can smell the ocean spray, can hear it too. The water rumbles low, like chariots across a battle field. But, there is no battle here. The thought of battle is far and long gone away. Here, I can lounge in the lush green grass and feel the sun bake my skin.

We are in two places at once.

The sea at our feet, the mountains at our backs. The two of us, in the middle. We are in the middle of everything—stuck between men and children, stuck between birth and fate. It is the perfect balance. Even the scales cannot tip.

“What shall we do today?” I say, my voice quiet.

Patroclus stirs beside me. He usually wakes first, but I feel bright and light and full of joy. I don’t really know why, but I don’t question it either. It washes over me, cool and clean. The air in my lungs is damp but not too hot.

“Mmph,” Patroclus says, snuffling closer. His warm breath dances across my pectorals. My toes curl beneath the blanket.

“Patroclus,” I say, my voice soft. “We could go for a swim.”

Patroclus’ fingers slip over my ribcage. They are not so calloused as they will come to be one day. There are few blemishes on his skin. Only those he gained from being clumsy, scraping knees as we peeled through the olive gardens at top speed, or gashes from falling out of trees, or the one memorable time he slipped in the ocean and cut himself on oyster shells. I had laughed hard and loud at him for that one and he didn’t talk to me for hours.

I know this body next to mine, better than I know my own. Even though I love my body, I love his more. Even when his bony elbow is digging a bit into my gut and his toes are cold against my calf.

“We could pick figs from the grove.”

Patroclus’ lips seem to be awake, while the rest of him is asleep. They kiss at the curve of my neck. I smile and my hand moves from where it was stretched out behind his head, stroking through his hair, once, then twice.

“We could spar.”

Those lips, warm and wet like sun-warmed honey travel up to just below my ear. His leg shifts, then slips over mine.

“I could play you a song.” I feel him smile against my skin at that. His hand strokes up and down my ribs, like it is I who is the lyre.

“Let’s just lay here,” a kiss on my throat, “all day,” a kiss on my cheek, “and never leave.”

Patroclus shifts again so that he lies mostly on top of me. His head blocks out the sun, the rays a halo around him. I’m rewarded with the rich bark-brown of his eyes. He smiles. I smile back. My hand reaches up to his dark, curly hair, tucking some of it behind his ear.

“We could do that too,” I say, tilting my chin up. His head tilts down and our lips join together without a sound. He tastes the same as I always have remembered him to taste. Maybe that is because he is just a memory.

But, then again, so am I.

Here, everything is memories. Solid, warm, and round.

“We have forever, after all.” I relish in the joy of these words, but not as much as I relish in the feel of his lips on mine and his body solid against me. He is rich to the taste. He is wonderful.

IIIII

The underworld is dull.

Heroes are promised riches and wonders beyond their wildest dreams. It is why we try so hard. It is why I sailed across the sea, knowing that Hades was waiting for me on the other side. Chasing glory. Chasing an afterlife of pleasures and peace and renown.

I do not feel like a hero, so it is understandable that the grass wilts beneath my feet where I walk and figs turn to ash in my mouth.

It is lonely. Quiet.

There is not breath in my lungs nor a beating heart in my chest. I feel hollow, like a reed. There is no wind, even, to whistle through me and make music.

Above, my life was full of colors—the glinting gold of breastplates and chariots, the burst of red blood, the shining blue of the ocean. There was the pink of figs. There was the warmest brown of Patroclus’ eyes, the bright white of his teeth, the red of his lips. The dark copper of his skin, which when I held it in my hands, made me feel like the richest man alive.

His laugh was a hurricane. His touch would stir my heart.

I long for him with an ache in my stomach that I was promised I would no longer feel. It is there, though. Carved deep within me is the sorrow. I feel I am rotting but cannot decompose. It is a purgatory that I deserve.

I close my eyes and pray for Patroclus’ soul. Maybe he has found the true Elysian Fields. I like to imagine him happy, skipping rocks across a shore. They skip, one, two, three, four—they never stop. His record will break mine. This makes him happy. He was always bereft that I had learned that game of his and done it better. There is music, where he is. There is warmth and light and peace. All the things that great-hearted, gentle Patroclus deserves.

All the things I fear I could not give him.

One day—is it a day? A night? Is it nothing at all?

Through the nothing—I feel the wind stir. I find myself surrounded by darkness. There is something coming towards me, a pin prick of light. A star, I think to myself. Perhaps I have made it to the stars after all.

Except, I do not want the stars, if Patroclus is not among them.  

Oh, how I wished I had known that when breath still filled my lungs.

Still, though, I reach out.

I reach and reach and suddenly, something touches me.

 _Patroclus_.

I would know the tips of those fingers anywhere. They were the fingers that held spears clumsily. They were fingers that sewed wounds and did not tremble under pressure. They were the fingers that trembled when they touched him. Trembled with pleasure and love.

Our palms kiss.

The light blinds for a moment and I close my eyes.

When I open them, we are nose to nose. I think of us as children, and for a moment that is what we are, and then, I think of us again on the cusp of manhood—too young to know the tragedy of war, but old enough and strong enough to hold the feeling of each other inside of us.

He smiles.

I smile.

“Patroclus,” I say and there are no tears, just joy—pure as freshly-forged steel.

“Achilles,” he says and his hands are in my hair.

My hands are around his waist. We grasp each other tightly. We do not kiss. We do not have to. I just want to hold him and feel him warm and solid against me.

He is. We are.

“How long?” I say.

“I don’t know,” he replies, “too long.”

I can hear the ocean at my back, but when I open my eyes were are in a rose quartz cave. There is surgical equipment on the wall. We are laying on our cot. There is no fear of trumpets on the horizon, no fate to pull us apart.

We lay side by side, our feet tangled, hands around each other’s waists. Our bodies are warm and I think I can feel my heart beat in my chest. It may be a phantom feeling, but I don’t care, because it makes me feel alive.

“Touch me,” Patroclus says.

“Where?”

“Here,” he commands, and touches his lips.

I kiss him obediently.

“And here,” he repeats and touches his collarbone.

I kiss there too.

“And here.”

I kiss him and never stop.

We have forever, after all.


End file.
